


love is not a victory march

by hholocene



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 00:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hholocene/pseuds/hholocene
Summary: Alternate season 8 and beyond. Victory is bittersweet."We thought we were going to die, so we seized every moment we had. Now the years fade away, and we do nothing."





	love is not a victory march

**Author's Note:**

> Season 8 is a disaster, so here is a quasi fix-it. I wrote this pre season 8, so a lot of the character deaths and dynamics are clearly divergent from canon.

In the wake of the war, there is only death and desolation. Arya, Jorah, Grey Worm, amongst a host of others perish on the battlefield. Rhaegal dies trying to protect his brother and his mother. And at the end, Bran is too weak to live. Sansa is the one who finds his lifeless body in the Godswood. Their pack is no more, save for her and Jon.

 

..

 

Dany takes the Iron Throne and watches Cersei die before her. It should be sweet but it is only bitter. Jon is by her side when it happens. True to his promise, he marched South with her.

 

“What happens now?” she asks.

 

“You rule,” he says simply.

 

“And you?”

 

He looks away. They have had this fight before.

 

“Sansa needs me. I am all she has left, I cannot leave her.”

 

“And what about me? Do I not need you, Jon?”

 

Her words pain him to the core.

 

“I wish it wasn’t like this.”

 

“Sansa can come South. I will find her a place in Court, any position that she desires.”

 

“No,” Jon shakes his head. “A Stark must always be in Winterfell.”

 

Whatever that is left of Winterfell.

 

“You could come North,” Jon tries. “Tyrion will find a way to manage.”

 

“You do not know me, if you truly believe I would do that,” she snaps.

 

He didn’t think she would abide it, but he had to try. 

 

“It is my duty, Jon. I owe it to all those who have died to make this day possible. I owe it to  _ our _ House.”

 

..

 

Her coronation is a sombre affair. Years of strife reaching its culmination and yet she feels hollow at best, suffocated at worst.

 

Jon stands on the sides, watching the crown placed upon her head. Amidst the looming pain of separation, a trickle of pride touches his heart.

 

“You will make a great Queen,” he tells her after.

 

“And you would have made a great King.”

 

“Dany, don’t,” he pleads. He wishes that she might let him leave without acrimonity. 

 

“This is your destiny as much as it is mine.”

 

“Destiny, birthrights, it is all for naught. You are here for no reason other than your sheer will. You fought for this.”

 

“So you would just throw it all aside, your birthright. You may deny it, you may hide from it at every turn, but you are a Targaryen just as much as you are a Stark,” Dany bristles.

 

Jon ignores the accusation. This has been a silent battle between them ever since Bran told them the truth. Dany felt joy at not being the last of her name, but he only felt a terrible sickness. In the time since, he still didn’t know how to be a Targaryen. All he had ever known was Jon Snow.

 

“I have no desire to rule, I never had. I only want a moment of peace after all these years of fighting.”

 

“Go then,” she bites back. “Go back to your Winterfell.”

 

..

 

When he returns North, he can hardly hide his sadness. Not from Sansa.

 

“You love her, Jon. Go, be by her side. Do not stay here for me,” she tells him. Even as she secretly wishes for him to stay. She does not want to be alone, here in Winterfell with all its tainted memories. 

 

He gives her a shadow of a smile.

 

“I cannot just leave you to restore Winterfell all on your own. Father’s ghost will haunt me,” he says, like all those years ago in Castle Black. So much has changed since, least of all that Ned Stark was never his father. Except that he  _ is _ . He won’t entertain any thought otherwise.

 

Sansa fights back the tears and squeezes his hands tightly. 

 

The North will see glory once more. She will make sure of it.

 

..

 

He sees her again at a tourney at Horn Hill. He only goes because he hasn’t seen Sam in so long. At least, that is what he convinces himself to believe.

 

She is still so divine. Ethereal in her flowing lilac dress, more Essoi in fashion than Westerosi. The men all gape and the women gossip in scandalised tones but she is the Queen, so she dictates the rules.

 

At the feast, he watches her charm the line of Lords who approach her. She dances with a dozen of them, laughing lightly and throwing practiced smiles that surely render the men mindless.

 

He keeps watching, standing in the shadows. He feels more a bastard than a man who had once been King. A man, who could still be King. He need only to ask.

 

..

 

It shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does. She has always been bold and disregarding of proper conduct.

 

She stalks him out in his room. She strides inside before he can say no. Stands in front of the flickering fire and undoes the knot tying her dress together. It unravels before his eyes, leaving her naked visage for him to admire. 

 

“Do not think, Jon. Do not ponder if this is right or wrong. Just have me,” she purrs.

 

He doesn’t have to be asked twice.

 

Afterwards, he cradles her face in his hands.

 

“I miss you, Dany,” he whispers. “ _ So much _ .”

 

She doesn’t reply, only hugs him tighter. 

 

In the morning when he wakes, she is gone.

 

..

 

“Did you speak to her?” Sansa asks when he returns to Winterfell.

 

They exchanged very few words to be exact.

 

“Aye,” he answers nevertheless. 

 

Sansa observes him closely, noting the guilty look apparent on his face.

 

“You bedded her,” she states.

 

“Aye,” he admits reluctantly.

 

“ _ Jon _ .”

 

“I know it was a mistake,” he huffs. “You do not have to remind me.”

 

Sansa frowns slightly, and comes to sit beside him.

 

“I do not blame you. We have to seize our moments of happiness when we get them.”

 

“A moment of happiness, and now months of agony trying to forget her again,” Jon muses cynically.

 

“You never forgot her, Jon. And I doubt you ever will,” Sansa points out. “You could go to her, still. She would take you back.”

 

Jon shakes his head. Sansa is still healing from the scars of their family’s loss, and from the Boltons and the Lannisters before. He is healing too.

 

“I saw the life she leads. I want no part in it.”

 

“I hear the Lords are growing restless. She will have to marry soon.”

 

Jon snorts. A wonder it will be when someone dictates to the Dragon Queen what she must do.

 

“Daenerys is strong and steadfast but she cannot break all the rules at once,” Sansa continues. “Think it through. You do not want to be too late.”

 

Jon wants to tell her, he is already too late.

 

..

 

Three years into her reign, she finally concedes to Tyrion’s insistence that she marry. The murmurs were growing too loud to ignore. Her lack of a heir threatening the tenuous peace she has managed to exact. A heir she will never produce, but for now a marriage might prevent any dissent.

 

Tyrion finds her a Lord from Dorne. An apology for the crimes committed by Rhaegar against the Princess Elia. He is a soft man, malleable to her desires. Lacking in political ambition. There is a kindness to his eyes and he is more tolerant than the rest of Westeros when it comes to her Essoi customs. She even finds him to be companionable in conversation.

 

When the topic of her acquiring a husband had returned, she had thought to write to Winterfell. To ask for the hand of the only man she wanted to marry. But the memory of his stinging rebuke only months ago was fresh in her mind.

  
She had written to him, and told him that Dragonstone laid vacant. It needed a Lord, and it belonged to him by right. He was the Prince of Dragonstone, like his father before him.

 

Jon’s reply had been brief.

 

_ Your honour me, Your Grace. But I must decline. _

 

She took it personally. He had spent three years in Winterfell. If he still was not prepared to come South, he never would.

 

So now she writes to Winterfell again, with only an invitation to her wedding.

 

Sansa informs her she will attend. Her brother will be absent.

 

..

 

Seeing Sansa reminds her how much she has missed her. There was a time when she might have called her sister.

 

“He is handsome, Daenerys,” Sansa comments about her husband.

 

Dany takes a sip of her Dornish red.

 

“That he is,” she agrees evenly. 

 

“But you do not love him,” Sansa remarks, a touch cautious. She is still the Queen, no matter her insistence that she speak freely.

 

“No,” Dany laughs. “I do not think I will see love again in my lifetime.”

 

“You never know. I thought I never would, but now--”

 

“You met someone,” Dany interrupts with a gleeful smile. Sansa nods, smiling brightly. “Who is he?”

 

“He is no Lord. He is only the baker’s son. I went to the kitchens one night and I found him making lemon cakes. He told me he was making them because he heard the Lady of Winterfell was fond of them.”

 

“It doesn’t matter what titles or lands he holds, only that he treats you with care and respect.”

 

“He does, more than I could have ever imagined.”

 

“Good,” Dany says warmly. “Will you marry him?”

 

“I would like to. I wanted to ask you first if there was any match you might have been planning.”

 

“Sansa, you know I would never dictate who you marry,” Dany scolds.

 

“Sometimes politics necessitates it,” Sansa replies wearily.

 

“No, not in my Westeros. No girl will ever have to marry against her will again.”

 

“And what of your marriage?”

 

“I am the Queen. I make sacrifices so my people do not have to.”

 

“We have made so many sacrifices already,” Sansa laments. “Do not lose who you are, Daenerys. There are only so many sacrifices you can make before you have nothing left to give.”

 

“Wise words, my friend,” Dany offers with exhausted grace. “But let us not dwell on such matters. Tell me more about your new love. When do you plan to marry?”

 

“Soon, very soon. Will you come?”

 

“Will I be wanted?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“You know, I could not come alone. My new consort would have to accompany me if I want to avoid a scandal at court.”

 

Sansa nods solemnly. 

 

“I understand.”

 

“Does Jon?”

 

Sansa bites her lip tentatively.

 

“He understands you have duties you must uphold,” she offers diplomatically.

 

“Very well. I won’t miss it,” Dany promises.

 

..

 

Returning to Winterfell is a wash of memories. In the comfort of their private chambers, Missandei weeps for Grey Worm. Dany comforts her friend and sheds tears of her own. She wonders how Jon and Sansa live in these haunted halls. But then, it is their  _ home _ . She knows no home as they do.

 

The wedding is a beautiful, modest affair. Hers had been a wealth of pageantry. Unfeeling and palpable with the absence of affection. Meanwhile, love kindles in the Northern air.

 

She watches Jon give Sansa away. Still so dashingly handsome but the years leave their mark. He looks older, worn out, yet missing the tension she had grown accustomed to. He glows with brotherly love, and she wishes she could have had that. Not a brother who had so flippantly whored her out. She forces those thoughts away from her mind. It does not do to dwell on the past.

 

..

 

Jon asks her to dance and she is too dumbstruck to respond at once. Perhaps he feels bolder in the walls of his home.

 

“Yes,” she obliges after a moment. Then he is taking her hand, whisking her away from her husband’s side.

 

They dance in silence, even as he holds her closer than she expects.

 

“You’ve improved a lot,” he finally comments, a measure of mirth in his voice.

 

She remembers the last time they had danced together, in this same Hall in the middle of the war. She had been clumsy but it had not mattered. They were happy then. 

 

“I was always a quick learner,” she quips back. “And I have had a lot of practice.”

 

“It shows,” he says, and the silence settles once more. She is desperate to disrupt it.

 

“How have you been, Jon?” she asks.

 

“Fine,” he replies, curt as ever. He observes her with hooded eyes.

 

“And you?”

 

“ _ Splendid _ ,” she answers with a glare of sarcasm. She is infuriated once more. Why ask her to dance and then only offer meaningless pleasantries.

 

When the song finishes, she breaks apart and briskly walks away. 

 

.

 

He finds her outside, crouching next to Ghost. The direwolf happily wags his tail as she scratches her favoured spot behind his ear.

 

“He misses you,” Jon hears himself say.

 

“I miss him too,” Dany murmurs. 

 

“Is he good to you?” Jon asks.

 

Dany stands up and faces him.

 

“What do you mean is he good to me?”

 

“Your husband, does he treat you well? Is he good to you?”

 

“I am the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, he couldn’t hurt me if he wanted to. But in answer to your question, yes, he is good to me.”

 

He has always found her so brazen when she is angry. It infuriates and arouses him at once.

 

“You realise it is a political marriage that we have,” she presses when she is only met with his stony silence. 

 

“Sansa said as much. But people grow to care for one another,” he offers mildly. 

 

“Yes, people do,” she spits out bitterly. “What do you want from me, Jon? There was always a place by my side. I gave you Dragonstone, I would give you anything and yet you chose the North, time and time again.”

 

“I want you,” he fires back. “Not Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. I want Dany, the women beneath all the titles.”

 

“You deride those titles like they are not part of me,” she fumes.

 

“I know they are. They make you as incredible as you are. And in another world, I could have been beside you on that damned Throne. But after everything, all that I lost in the war, I did not have it in me.”

 

She shuts her eyes, tries to stem tears from appearing. Ghost whines quietly in the background.

 

“I wish it could have been different,” she says regretfully.

 

“Me too,” Jon agrees.

 

..

 

After Sansa has her first child, he starts to question his place in the North. Winterfell has been rebuilt. Sansa has a family of her own. He finds joy in doting on his niece and there will always be comfort in Winterfell’s familiar walls, but he grows restless. 

 

He considers going to the Wall, to the Night’s Watch once more. Sansa stops him the minute he runs the idea by her.

 

“Go South, Jon. Go to her,” she urges. “Do not inflict a life of solitude on yourself.”

 

Finally, he writes to Dany. He tells her, if the offer still remains, he would like to take up his Lordship at Dragonstone.

 

..

 

He is at his desk, reading his mother’s old letters when Ghost starts barking and scratching at the balcony door. When he walks up to check, he sees Drogon in the distance. Even from so far, he can spot the silver of her braids.

 

.

 

They sit in the War Room, in front of the roaring hearth. Him with his ale and she with her wine.

 

“Do you remember all those years ago when we first met?” Dany recalls.

 

“How could I forget?”

 

She glances at him, a glimmer in her eyes.

 

“I remember the first time I saw you, I thought,” she smiles serenely, “I thought you were so handsome.”

 

Jon laughs, “Is that so?”

 

She smirks back, “Until you started speaking, of course. Then I found you most frustrating.”

 

“That makes the two of us.”

 

Dany keeps looking at him, her thoughts growing wistfully. 

 

“Could you have ever imagined that you and I would,” She pauses hesitantly. She wants to say, _ that you and I would fall in love _ . But it does not seem appropriate anymore. So she lets the words go unspoken and allows him to fill in the blanks.

 

“A bastard and a Queen, no one would have imagined,” Jon replies ruefully.

 

“You are no bastard,” Dany corrects. When he is silent, she sets her wine down and stands up.  She saunters over to where he sits. She may not be tall but her regality towers over him.

 

He looks up at her, watching closely. Dany presses her hands flat against his shoulders and eases herself onto his lap. His breath hikes in anticipation.

 

She holds his face in her hands, with a tenderness he has long forgotten.

 

“You came to me as King in the North. But you could have come to me as Lord Commander or the Bastard of Winterfell, it wouldn’t have mattered. The only thing that matters is that your heart is pure. That you are kind and generous, the best man that I have ever known.”

 

She kisses him and desire courses through him. It is deliciously perfect, so much so he nearly gives in.

 

“This is dishonourable,” he agonises, pushing her away.

 

“There is no honour in a false marriage,” Dany presses. He lifts her off him gruffly and starts pacing the room.

 

“You made a vow, a promise to your husband.”

 

“Spare me the sermon, Jon. My husband, that you are so worried about, is in love with my Dothraki handmaiden.”

 

He glares at her with a look of contemptful shock.

 

“And you let him dishonour  _ you _ like that?”

 

“What is to me? I do not love him, nor do I need him to love me. So long as no one finds out, there is no honour tainted.”

 

Jon clenches his jaw, and presses his hands tightly against the painted table.

 

“It isn’t right,” he censures. 

 

“He’s not even bedding her. He’s too afraid of me. He just,” Dany searches for the right word, “Longs for her.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“Call it a woman’s intuition.”

 

His mind is running wild. He wonders why she is telling him this. If these are lies meant to manipulate him. Or if these are truths and he is merely a pawn in some twisted game. But among the tyranny of these thoughts, only one settles in his mind.

 

“Are  _ you _ fucking him?”

 

“My husband?” Dany raises an eyebrow.

 

“Yes, your consort.”

 

“No, not now” Dany answers.

 

“Not now?” Jon growls. “But you have before.”

 

“What? Was I supposed to wait like a little maid for you?” she growls back.

 

Jon shakes his head, the anger coming off him in waves.

 

“I can’t believe it,” he mutters under his breath, before storming out of the room.

 

.

 

She sleeps poorly and wakes at the crack of dawn. The first thing she does is go to his chambers. She knocks on his door and waits patiently.

 

When he opens, she sees discontent but no anger.

 

“I am sorry,” she says simply.

 

Jon motions her to come in and shuts the door behind her.

 

“There is not much to forgive,” he responds.

 

“You don’t hate me?” she asks shyly.

 

“Dany, I could never hate you.”

 

She wants to take the two steps forward and kiss him, but she refrains.

 

Instead, she looks around his room and spots the letters on his desk. 

 

Noticing her curiosity, he explains, “They are letters that Lyanna wrote to Rhaegar. The servants found them when cleaning out all the rooms.”

 

Dany walks over to his desk, and picks up one of the sheets of paper.

 

“She had a quick wit,” she comments after scanning through it.

 

“I was surprised too,” Jon says. Dany sets the paper down and her eyes fall on a small leather-bound book.

 

“That is one of Rhaegar’s diaries,” Jon says. Dany doesn’t open it, but lets her fingers flick through the pages.

 

“There are more. I took them with me to the Red Keep,” Dany tells him. “I can bring them to you, if you would like?”

 

“I would,” Jon says softly. Few years ago, he might have said no.

 

“Is that why you came back? You wanted to learn more about him?” Dany asks tentatively.

 

“No,” Jon admits. He thinks that she looks disappointed. He nearly tells her that he came back for her.

 

“You are still ashamed of him,” Dany accuses but not coldly.

 

He perches on the end of his bed, debating how to explain himself.

 

“No, it is not shame, not anymore. And it has never been shame that has stopped me from taking the Targaryen name.”

 

“Then what is it?”

 

“I was raised by Ned Stark. He is the only father I knew. I am Rhaegar’s son only by blood but not in the ways that really matter.”

 

“Why don’t you take the Stark name?”

 

“I was not a Stark for most of my life. It wouldn’t feel right now,” Jon answers. “But I am a son of the North. You were raised in the East, under the heat and sun, but all I knew until I came to Dragonstone was the cold and ice. So, I keep the name Snow because it is who I am.”

 

Dany nods and he thinks she might finally understand.

 

“What was it that Melisandre said about us,” Dany tries to recall.

 

“A song of ice and fire,” Jon remembers.

 

“She made us sound fated.”

 

Jon hums, contemplative.

 

“You know, I don’t believe in fate,” Jon begins. “But two people, growing up at two ends of the world and coming together like we did, in humanity’s greatest time of need...it felt a lot like fate.”

 

He looks at her with an unexpected hope, and she gives a delicate smile back.

  
  


.

 

They spend the days at Dragonstone, walking the beaches and the cliffs, relaying stories from the years spent apart. Then the time comes for Dany to depart.

 

Over dinner, she tells him, “I understand why you left. Sansa needed you, the North needed you. I was angry at the time, I didn’t want to understand. But I do now, so I don’t blame you for going away.”

 

“Thank you, Dany,” he replies, voice thick with emotion. “I thought about coming back South, so many times.”

 

“You are here now,” she merely points out.

 

He escorts her back to her chambers. When he is about to say goodbye and leave, she grips on to his hand.

 

“Stay with me,” she requests.

 

“We shouldn’t,” he insists.

 

“Do you remember those days during the war?” she prompts. “We thought we were going to die, so we seized every moment we had. Now the years fade away, and we do nothing. It cannot go on like this. Let us have this bit of joy for ourselves.”

 

He looks down at their adjoined fingers. With a deep breath, he takes her hands and leads her into her room.

 

.

 

She burrows her head against his chest, and he strokes her hair. Both hoping that tomorrow never comes.

 

“I don’t care what the Gods think, you are mine and I am yours. It is known,” she declares.

 

He cannot deny his Queen.

**Author's Note:**

> The ending is purposefully somewhat ambiguous. So go with your headcanon.


End file.
